OTTAWA — Controversial B.C. Conservative Gurmant Grewal cherishes a signed photograph he received from his leader, Stephen Harper, after Grewal performed an unusual feat for an opposition MP in 2003 by getting a private member’s bill passed into law.

That bill was one of many “significant” contributions Grewal said he made to his party and country from 1997 to 2006, including fighting allegations of racism within the old Reform Party led by Preston Manning.

“Gurmant: A solid contribution to the laws of Canada from the ‘Ironman’ of our caucus. Great Work!” wrote Harper, who was then the leader of the opposition.

But just days before a nomination meeting in the new Cloverdale-Langley City riding, Grewal has received the crushing news that, after nearly two years of groundwork signing up close to 1,500 members, his comeback bid has been blocked.

The snub ends Grewal’s hope of returning to sit in Parliament as part of a unique husband-and-wife team with Nina Grewal, MP for Fleetwood-Port Kells.

“The (National Candidate Selection Committee) has disallowed your candidacy,” an email from the party stated without providing an explanation for the decision.

Grewal told The Vancouver Sun he remains a loyal Conservative and a Harper supporter, but said he is troubled by the way the matter was handled.

“I believe democracy should be open, transparent and accountable, and in this situation those three things are missing.”

Grewal said he was accepted as a candidate by the local riding association, and added that Harper had personally encouraged him to run.

Grewal was confident he was going to win the nomination Saturday over former Liberal MLA Dave Hayer and several other candidates.

A second hopeful, businessman and former Liberal activist Paul Brar, has also been told to withdraw his nomination, leaving four candidates — Hayer, Dean Drysdale, Mike Garisto, and Tako van Popta.

A Conservative spokesman refused to explain the decision to punt Grewal and Brar.

“This is an internal party matter,” Cory Hann told The Sun in an email.

Grewal said he conducted a squeaky-clean campaign to sign up close to 1,500 members, but said he was told by local sources that there were complaints about possible rule breaches.

Two candidates contacted by The Sun on Thursday, Garisto and van Popta, said they had heard rumours about irregularities but said they didn’t file formal complaints with the party.

Grewal, first elected as a Reform MP in 1997, was embroiled in a controversy in 2005 that gripped the Canadian political world when he released tape recordings suggesting that he was in negotiations to move to the minority Liberal government, along with his wife.

Grewal maintained that he was a “whistleblower”, simply trying to prove the Liberals were corrupt by offering him inducements to switch parties.

He said supporters of Paul Martin, then leading a shaky minority Liberal government fearful of losing a confidence vote that would have triggered an election, were approaching Conservative and independent MPs trying to convince them to cross the floor.

But Liberals alleged Grewal approached the government seeking patronage plums in exchange for his and his wife’s votes, but was never promised anything specific.

Grewal stepped down as an MP shortly before the 2006 election, saying he didn’t want the controversy to be a distraction during the campaign. The House of Commons ethics commissioner issued a report in 2006 that didn’t take sides on the competing stories. But the report did say that secretly taping Liberals, including then-cabinet minister Ujjal Dosanjh, was “extremely inappropriate” and violated the spirit of the MPs’ Code of Conduct.

The RCMP investigated that incident, as well as an airport incident in which Grewal tried to convince someone to take a package to Ottawa, but dropped both investigations after finding no wrongdoing.

“No one is perfect. Things could have been done differently, but I have not done anything wrong,” Grewal said Thursday.

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